A mobile device managed by an organization is typically configured and controlled by a management service to ensure compliance. The mobile device may connect periodically over the air to the management service and send/receive management related information during a management session such as send status, send inventory, receive configuration, or receive policy.
In a conventional system, where the mobile device and the management service may not be aware of the other one's state, same information may be transmitted periodically between the two entities. This may result in excessive traffic, since duplicate information is sent repeatedly. While some powerful devices such as PCs may not be disadvantaged by the excessive traffic, for mobile devices with relatively limited connectivity, bandwidth, and/or battery life this approach may have severe implications due to the device limitations and degrade overall user experience as well as increase total cost of ownership (e.g. cause lag time while performing a management session).
Moreover, the lack of awareness of the mobile device's state by the management service results in lack of trust the management service has in the mobile device that it is correctly configured at any given time. If an on-device configuration or policy changes, that change may not be detected until the next management session, which can take place a long time after the actual change occurs on the device. Similarly, the management service may be unable to determine if an organizational configuration or policy change actually affects a specific device.